Welcome to my Ancient Hearth

A hearth is the heart of the home. It is where we come to gather, especially at the end of the day. We draw about the fire to warm ourselves; we take in the smells of the cooking, nourishing our bodies; we come to tell stories of our day, nourishing our spirits. Yearning for the wisdom of the past, I hope those who come to this blog will feel the warmth of the hearth.

I am homeschooling my Grade 5 twin girls using Waldorf inspired education and that is the primary focus of this blog.

I have spent quite a bit of time documenting our Grade 1 year, which can be found through the links below. Grade 2 is sparse and for that, I apologize. Grade 3 is even more sparse as life keeps us more and more pressed for time. Nonetheless, I have decided to leave this blog up because I know how much I have relied on other blogs to enhance my children's lives and even if I don't have time to put as much content up as I did when my twins were younger, I hope the efforts I have put out in prior years will help inspire other families who have embarked on their own unique journeys.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Happy Michaelmas!

Service and strength, God’s Angels and Archangels;His Seraphs fires, and lamps his Cherubim:Glory to God from highest and from lowest,Glory to God in everlasting hymnFrom all his creatures.

Princes that serve, and Powers that work his pleasure,Heights that soar toward him, Depths that sink toward him;Flames fire out-flaming, chill beside his Essence;Insight all-probing, save where scant and dimToward its Creator.

Sacred and free exultant in God’s pleasure,His will their solace, thus they wait on him;And shout their shout of ecstasy eternal,And trim their splendours that they burn not dimToward their Creator.

Today, we celebrate Michaelmas - the slaying of the dragon, representative of the dark and the letting in of the Light of God. The fall brings a wonderful slow-down as we begin to prepare for the birth of Christ in a few short months.

I love my copy of "All Year Round". It keeps me prepared for the festivals and I turned to it again today.

We purchased some decorating beeswax this year.

The colors were so vibrant on each thin sheet.

The girls constructed our own dragon to celebrate the Feast of Saint Michael.

I helped a little bit...

Meanwhile, while they were creating, I was preparing dough for our dragon bread...

While it rose, the girls finished the dragon candle. We smoothed the edges and tried it out. Charley decided to add the moon, some stars and a fairy flying around the dragon's fire. We will burn it every night at dinner until the dragon has been destroyed, symbolically.

The girls shaped their dragon bread (we ended up with one bird, one dragon and a bunch of hearts)...

And I told them the story of "The Kite" from Wynstone Press' Autumn book.

For a wonderful Michaelmas story, check out one of my very favorite blogs (OK my favorite one...I admit it...) Our Little Nature Nest here. And also, her activities for Michaelmas from last year here.

And finally, from another one of my favorite blogs, Parenting Passageway, check out Carrie's post last year in preparation of Michaelmas here.

We're continuing the amazing story of "The Dragon Boy", which I hope to review on Friday! The girls can't get enough of it! It has been a perfect read aloud for the beginning of autumn as we happened to read the two chapters about the autumn solstice on the actual autumn solstice! I love it when things fall into place like that!